


Mirror, Mirror

by sapphose



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Gen, Mirror Universe (Star Trek), Pining, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:48:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27072262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphose/pseuds/sapphose
Summary: Garak decides to visit Julian's quarters one evening, but is concerned that Julian isn't quite behaving like himself.
Relationships: Julian Bashir & Elim Garak, Julian Bashir/Elim Garak
Comments: 20
Kudos: 104





	Mirror, Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of those things where I had an idea in the shower, raced to write it down, and then posted it with absolutely no editing. So apologies in advance if it makes no sense.

Garak was taking a risk, he knew, by escalating. It would have been a grave danger on Cardassia. But he was not on Cardassia, he was living amongst Bajorans and Federation species, and they seemed to favor bold strokes. Breaking into the holosuite program had been a success, and that emboldened him to go further.

He purposefully did not give the doctor the book at lunch. It could have been easily thwarted, had Julian noticed, but he was distracted in his rush to get to the infirmary before the start of his shift. He seemed to leave lunch later and later every week, which Garak took as a personal compliment.

His shift ended at 1700, so Garak waited until 1830, then slipped the datarod in his pocket and quietly made his way through the habitat ring. It was the suitably arbitrary 1833 when he made his presence known at the doctor’s door.

He could have just broken in, of course, but he was aware that doing so was rude, even if he did not always choose to act in accordance with that knowledge.

Julian took a minute to answer the door, long enough for Garak to begin to rethink his strategy. He hadn’t hacked security feeds to check that the doctor was at home, so there was always the possibility that Julian was in Quark’s or off on an emergency mission or anywhere on the station, really. It was also possible that he had invited someone else over (someone who would be, predictably, young and female), and would not welcome the intrusion. Although, if Garak were to be honest, he couldn’t quite bring himself to care if he spoiled a planned tryst.

When the door opened, it revealed no signs of intimate company. Julian looked ordinary, still fully dressed in uniform, with a slight tension to his eyes and jaw that indicated it had not been a restful evening.

“My dear doctor,” Garak began, ready to spin a tale about how he had been stitching up a jacket and realized that he had neglected to give Julian this week’s piece of literature, how embarrassingly forgetful, so he had come to drop it off, with apologies for interrupting the evening. With any luck, Julian would not only take the isolinear rod but also invite him inside for a drink, thus opening up new avenues of socialization.

At least, that was the plan. Garak got no further than the last syllable of _doctor_ before he was quite loudly interrupted.

“Garak, I’m so sorry, I know I promised to have dinner with you today, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to cancel.”

Instantly, Garak was on high alert. He and the doctor had not made dinner plans- had, in fact, _never_ made dinner plans- and nothing in Julian’s tone or manner indicated that it was some kind of joke.

Barring an odd attempt at humor, two explanations came immediately to mind.

First, that Julian had been replaced by someone who did not know all of his habits. With Changelings around, one could never be too careful, especially not after the mess on Earth.

Secondly, it was possible that Julian was attempting to communicate something, although he had in the past rarely understood the need for subtlety in messages.

“I understand, Doctor,” Garak said smoothly. “May I ask why?”

“The environmental controls in my quarters are all out of whack. I’ll tell Sisko to take a look at it tomorrow.”

Another mystery. It would be O’Brien and the engineering team who would need to be alerted, not Sisko. Did the replacement not understand the role of station personnel, or did Julian need some kind of message given to Sisko about his quarters?

“Would you like me to come in and take a look?” Garak offered. “I do dabble in computer programming.” The response would help him gather more evidence.

“That’s kind of you, Garak, but I really think-”

“ _Garak_?” interrupted a voice from inside the room. “You have dinner plans with that bloody Cardassian?”

How odd. The voice sounded suspiciously like Julian’s own.

The disrupter came into view first, aimed directly at Julian’s head. The hand and arm followed. Finally, the face emerged.

Julian, but not. Julian if he were filthy, scruffy, scowling, and generally unkempt.

“In the room,” not-Julian snarled. “Now.”

The hand holding the disrupter twitched, and Garak’s own Julian winced.

Options limited, Garak stepped inside, the door slipping shut behind him.

Julian’s quarters showed no sign of a struggle, only the casual disarray of a busy life, stacks of PADDs and forgotten cups of tea on different surfaces.

“You don’t need to involve him,” Julian said to his counterpart, who responded with a nasty smile.

“Why do you care what happens to him? Do you know what he’s like on my side?”

“Yes, I do. I met him while I was on your station. I know he’s a torturer and a killer, but this Garak is not like that,” Julian said firmly.

Garak decided that this was not the best time to disagree, although for Julian to express such an opinion meant he was deliberately ignoring the evidence.

‘Your station,’ ‘my side’… The mirror universe. Garak knew of it, although it was one of those absurd anomalies that only Starfleet seemed to come across. For all of Dukat’s faults, at least hostile doppelgangers never ran around pointing phasers at people when he ran the station.

“Bullshit,” the other Bashir argued, as if that were a coherent counterpoint. “I’m sure if I shot him now I’d be doing everyone a favor.”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Julian hissed between gritted teeth.

It was always a good feeling to have someone care if Garak died, even in such less-than-ideal circumstances. Most of those who had opinions on the subject were firmly hoping for fatalities.

“Why, because then you’d miss dinner with him?” Bashir sneered. He cocked the disrupter towards Garak. “New deal. You come with me, or I shoot him.”

This had gone on long enough.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Garak interjected pleasantly. He took a deliberately and misleadingly slow step forward, then sprang into action, hooking one foot at Bashir’s ankle to throw him off balance and deftly snatching the disrupter from his hands. Bashir stumbled, and Garak delivered a hard blow to his back, driving him to the ground.

“Bashir to Security,” Julian barked into his communicator. “I need help in my quarters!”

Well, Garak supposed as he pressed Bashir to the ground with his knee and held the point of the disrupter to his neck, a Starfleet officer did have to follow protocol. But really, the alternate Bashir was untrained and clumsy. Garak felt he had the situation perfectly under control.

Odo and the Bajoran security deputies arrived relatively quickly, although Garak did believe he had the situation well in hand. They handcuffed the mirror universe Bashir and hauled him off to a holding cell, although Odo commed Sisko and lingered to ask Julian dozens of questions, the answers to which were disappointingly unhelpful. No, Julian didn’t know how Bashir had gotten here, and no, he didn’t know why Bashir wanted to take him to the other side.

“It’s lucky for you that Garak came by,” Odo observed suspiciously, to which Garak smiled brightly and refused to comment. He liked to leave Odo guessing.

When the last of the security personnel were gone, Julian exhaled heavily, sank into a chair, and ran his hands through his hair.

“It’s always something,” he murmured, which was such a vague statement that Garak had no idea what it meant.

“Did he hurt you?” Garak asked, already fairly confident in the answer but wanting to be sure.

“No, just waved the disrupter around and blustered. I thought maybe I could get some information out of him, but he just kept threatening me if I didn’t go with him.” Julian’s brow furrowed. “It was strange, actually. I wonder if he was waiting for someone or something.”

Garak wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case. The mirror Bashir had not struck him as one with a great head for planning.

“Do you think more alternates will show up?”

Julian bit his lip.

“I hope not, but if his ship was any larger than a shuttle, he might not have been operating it alone.” Another sigh. “I suspect I’m not going to get much sleep tonight.”

Garak reached into his pocket, and felt for the datarod he had stuck in there, when he left his quarters with high hopes for the evening.

He could hand it over and then make his excuses to leave. That would be the safe move. It would be kindest to Julian, really, to keep his distance. To allow Julian to keep the idea he had apparently maintained, against all odds, of Garak as someone who could be counted on to be better than he really was.

But Julian always made Garak want to make unwise decisions. This evening was no exception.

“If you’d like company for a little longer, Doctor, I do believe you offered me dinner.” Garak spoke lightly, the way he often did when he wanted to leave room for interpretation, allowing Julian the option to laugh it off.

Instead, Julian smiled gratefully.

“I’ll replicate you anything you like,” he said. “It’s the least I can do to pay you back for rescuing me.”

“I’m sure you could have handled it.”

“I mean it, Garak.” Julian leaned over and rested a gentle hand on Garak’s arm. “Thank you.”

That warm touch ignited sparks in Garak. He found himself smiling back.

“My pleasure, Doctor.”

There was something in the way Julian looked at Garak. It made Garak want to believe that he could be the person Julian seemed to see.

**Author's Note:**

> I know it's an abrupt end, sorry about that! That's as far as my brain took me.  
> This takes place in late season 4, which means right after this Garak goes and tries to blow up a planet with Julian still on it. Always one step forward, two steps back with these idiots.


End file.
